Lost Time
by Lyssa Terald
Summary: The years she lost nearly broke her sanity and her marriage. Follow the course of Sigyn's imprisonment at the hands of Enchantress Amora and the steps that Loki took to help her.


_A/N: This was written in response to several requests to know what happened to Sigyn while under Amora's control. Instead of glossing over it in the main story, I decided to write a fuller version of how it happened. Do note, this will span a number of years and quite possibly include depictions of violence. _

* * *

The day it started, it wasn't dark and stormy. Sigyn didn't wake that morning thinking, _This is a good day to get kidnapped._ Her day started out with a morning that was slightly overcast and cool in temperature, but with hints of sunshine poking through. Loki woke her with his abrupt rising when something occurred to him between the haze of sleep and wakefulness. She threw one of their pillows at him before trying to curl back up and snatch a few more hours of sleep, but it was for naught with the noise he made trying to find something. The crash of a clay pot had her glaring at him from beneath the covers.

He, at least, had the good grace to look a little repentant with the broken pieces of clay still clutched in his hands before he vanished it. "That's the third one this week, love," she murmured, contemplating throwing another pillow at his head. "What spell are you working on that requires you to break so many pots?"

The look he gave her made her chuckle. If there was one way to wind him up, it was purposely asking wrong questions about his current project. Instead of rising to the bait, he asked, "Where did you put the sample that I took from the Bi-frost?"

She flipped the covers back over her head. "It gave off light so I put it in the kitchen…with the bat liver," she said and the outraged noise he made was entirely worth having been woken so early.

"The _fresh_ bat liver?! If blood of any kind _touches_ it, the sample will be rendered useless. Do you _remember_ how long it took me to get permission from father _and_ Heimdal?" he asked, sounding more frustrated than angry.

She peered out at him from under the covers and smiled a little. "I jest, love. I moved it to the shelf above the cold cabinet where you wouldn't miss it on your way out. Don't forget to stop by the spring tonight. I'm going to need more of the blessed water to make more of the tonic," she told him and the irritability seemed to bleed from him.

He had crossed their room and knelt beside the bed to take her face between his palms in a surprisingly tender gesture before she realized what he was doing. She didn't jerk away, but any trace of sleep that had remained was gone in that moment. "Your father will survive this," he said softly. "Your skills are unrivaled in any realm as a Healer and you will not fail, not with the life of one so precious to you."

His words startled a sound from her that was torn between a laugh and a sob as the fear punched through her and twisted her stomach. A hundred and fifty years of marriage and she still wasn't used to his keen way of hitting upon what made her twist with worry, even when she wasn't quite aware of it herself. She extended her arms towards him and caught him in a hug. Burying her head in the crook of his neck, she let him straighten and draw her from the bed until she was standing in the balls of her feet and flush against him with one hand around her waist and the other rubbing her back in a soothing pattern.

The moment stretched into a minute and silence was still their only companion as he simply held her and she allowed herself to be held. They stayed like that, surrounded as they were by open spellbooks and handwritten notes scattered across every available surface, until a hard knock at the front door startled them apart.

Loki frowned, his hands lingering on her hips for a moment before he stepped fully away and touched his palm to one of his books. A space before his eyes flattened itself into a square to allow him to see the individual knocking. A crease between his eyebrows deepened as he frowned at the sight of Fandral standing nervously on their doorstep.

"The idiot finally remembers where we left for and has the gall to send one of his little followers," Loki muttered to himself. He added a few, choice explicitives about his brother's intelligence that had Sigyn stepping around him to lean against his shoulder and take in the sight he was muttering over.

She had to laugh at the irony of it. "You're only put out because you wanted _him_ to come and fetch you after how the two of you parted," she said, dispelling the image. "Fandral is not a _follower_ that tags along to stand in Thor's shadow. He has plenty of those who would give their pride as a warrior for him to simply _look_ at them."

The look that he cast her sobered any amusement she'd been feeling and made her lean a little closer to him. "Yes, plenty of _willing_ souls to do as the Golden Thor of Asgard bids," he said, a trace of bitterness coloring his tone.

There was a pause in which she wrapped her arms around him and said, "You must admit, though, if he is being cautious in approaching you again you cannot blame him after you spelled him into female form and gave him an aura of irresistibility which, under normal circumstances wouldn't have put him off, you have to admit would have made him edgy after having to beat every male in the palace and the city away from him." She paused and added with a slight smile, "I do believe he ended up in the mountains for a solid three weeks before your father could reverse the transformation _without_ embarrassing himself."

The reminder had its intended effect as he glanced sidelong at her and grinned a little. "It was not one of my finer moments in a fit of temper, but the spell was exquisitely performed," he admitted. The knock sounded again, a little more insistent this time, and the humor vanished from his features to be replaced by a cool mask of indifference. Sigyn detached herself and watched him walk out of their bedroom before she slipped into the closet to select her outfit for the day.

Loki didn't look back once as he stepped out of the room to walk through the kitchen, retrieve his shard, and open the door with a flick of his fingers while he inspected the little piece of the Bi-frost. Fandral looked more than a little harassed, exhausted, and stressed-something the spell had not shown him. Curious now, he placed the shard back onto its shelf and raised his eyebrows expectantly at the warrior.

"Thor is injured," Fandral said without preamble.

"Oh?" Loki asked, sounding a little amused. "Did his latest _mis_adventure leave him with a thorn in his side? A crushed hand perhaps? Was his _pride_ injured perhaps?"

"It wasn't a _misadventure_ this time. It was an assassin's blade coated with a poison we can't identify. The poison is eating him alive from the inside out. We're not sure he'll survive without Sigyn," the warrior snapped, forgoing his usual jesting nature. "Heimdall sent me without waiting for an order from the Allfather. We _need_ her."

There was no trace of amusement left, only a bright glittering rage that struck something cold and dark in him. A noise in the kitchen behind him drew his attention and he turned to find Sigyn not three steps from him, a potion in hand and her features drained of color. It was the tonic, he realized, the one that she gave her father to stop a poison from…_eating_ him…_alive_. She pressed the tonic into his hands and almost laughed, but the sound was more a choked sob than something of amusement.

To choose between her father-whom she couldn't remember, but loved nonetheless-and the brother she _knew _and had _chosen_, Loki couldn't begin to imagine the ways in which she was being torn. "I've three more," she said. "I cannot leave my father at this stage. If he goes a day without healing _and_ the tonic then he will die inside of six hours. Father is further along. If Thor was only just wounded last night-" she broke off at the squeeze of his fingers around hers.

"I am a more than adequate healer," he said, stepped left so his body blocked her from Fandral's view. "Your father's condition is more serious and I will be better able to track the source with an almost fresh sample. I am familiar with your process of making it. If this does not stop the initial spread, I am more than capable of retrieving the ingredients myself."

Relief and gratitude were what he saw flickering through her eyes just before she pressed a chaste kiss to his lips and darted back into the main interior of their little home. He watched her disappear back into their room, not realizing it would be the last he would see her for a long time.


End file.
